The Doctor Who Show Reviews - Episode 9 (TARDIS Library 1)

A month goes past very quickly. I'm sure someone is stealing one of the days of the week somehow. Anyway, here's the text version of the comics reviews for episode 9 of the "Doctor Who Show" podcast. The reviews have actually been spun-off into their own distinct sub-podcast from this month, sub-titled "The TARDIS Library"

The spoiler warning alarm is active, so don't read any further if you want to experience the issue completely cold.

Twelfth Doctor  # 2.8

"The Twist" Part 3. Writer George Mann. Artist: Mariano Laclaustra

So what do we find beneath the three covers we have to choose from this month?

If you recall, we left the Doctor, bass player Hattie and Jakob, the guy with the cybernetic eye, at the mercy of the Foxkin. These bipedal vulpines are the intelligent descendants of the original creatures from the colony ship that founded The Twist, but they have been keeping a massive secret about the origins of the human inhabitants  - one they can't let anyone reveal.To protect everything, the Doctor and his companions are condemned to a life of permanent imprisonment in the Foxkin city.

And that's where we pick things up. Jakob certainly doesn’t like being locked up. He reveals himself to be a nasty, bigoted piece of work - unable to believe that such "vermin" had anything to do with his birth. It's perhaps a slightly sudden character development, but it does give the Doctor the opportunity to deliver a great sarcastic put down. The racist idiot does prove useful though as his bionic eye finally makes an appearance in the plot and allows the three to escape (I won’t reveal exactly how).

Suddenly they are surrounded by more Foxkin - but these are a different bunch - an offshoot who believe that they should reveal themselves and integrate with the human population. Leading everyone back the the park on the surface, they arrive just in time to see the particular Foxkin Hattie hit with her beloved bass guitar (last issue) being bundled away by the security forces. Armed police and reporters are everywhere and The Twist's own Nigel Farage delivers a speech about the "aliens amongst us - coming to take our jobs..."

It's the vindication Jakob has been waiting for. He goes into full on rant mode, practically frothing at the mouth about destroying the Foxkin. Of course the Doctor knows the truth - he's always known the truth - Jakob is the real monster here and his complete story, including his search for whomever murdered his friend the councilor, has been a pack of lies. The truth is divulged at last - from Jakob's own eye no less - and he runs off into the crowds. I had a hunch something was up with him from the start - the xenophobic nutter knew his way around those underground tunnels a bit *too* well.

So what's the Doctor's solution to how to reveal the Foxkin to the world?

Wait for it....

Hold an outdoor rock concert apparently!

Yes the Doctor gets to play his funky alien guitar with Hattie's band "Space Pirates" as their fans (who are apparently all political revolutionaries) gather in the park. Transmitting his message of tolerance to the citizens of the Twist, the Timelord urges them to never be cruel or cowardly. The power of rock music unites everyone and both sides greet each other in friendship as the Foxkin step out of the shadows.

All this and Jakob gets arrested.

Hmmmmm…..

No I'm sorry, it's utter rubbish.

It's the worst kind of saccharine ending - up there with "love saves you from becoming a Cyberman" and "thinking hard about the Doctor stops him being Dobby the House Elf". Is this the best that George Mann could come up with? All that build up over the last two issues and it's all over because the Doctor tells them to be nice to each other - as if that's what would really happen if you confronted a human population with the truth than they only exist thanks to some super-intelligent foxes.

Maybe he was trying for a similar feel to the Zygon two-parter from season 9, and  perhaps you could wave it away by saying the future is a more enlightened time and everyone is more loving and tolerant - but that's not born out by the behaviour shown on the page when Jakob and his pals are promoting racial hatred.

You know what I'd have liked to have seen? Things go wrong. Give the Doctor his "Live Aid" moment. Reveal the Foxkin. But have the Doctor misjudge things for once. Instead of peace and love you get mass panic and fighting on the streets and mutual mistrust. Have the Doctor struggling to find a cleverer way to broker peace and convince the two populations that they won't kill each other as soon as his back is turned. He's a Timelord. He's got LOTS of time. Make him work for things and have to stay on the Twist for six months and really put some effort in - not swan off after five minutes. No wonder Ashildr had to clean up after him...

Anyway, let's take it as a given that I wasn't fond of the conclusion to the storyline. We do get a new companion though, as Hattie joins the TARDIS (for now anyway). She a bit of a personality vacuum based on her appearances so far, so let's see if future issues flesh out her background a bit more. I just hope its not going to be a constant stream of spot the musical allusion and jam sessions in the TARDIS from now on.

I've not really mentioned the art yet. It’s quality figure work from Mariano and his Argentinian assistants as we have come to expect - solidly building on the previous issues, and the Foxkin probably look their best this time out. There are a few detailed double splash pages for the big scenes, but generally I thought there was a distinct lack of backgrounds in most of the panels. Admittedly there were a lot of talking head shots and close-ups, but it wouldn’t have hurt to put in a few lines to give location context. Carlos Cabrera does his best but just seemed to colour everything a bit…well...…orange. Mariano seems to be at his best in the wide angles and multiple points of view. Next time, give him plenty of alien vistas to draw, along with the talking heads. 

Talking of crowd scenes though, there's one image as we flip through multiple locations around The Twist that caught my eye. Amongst a scene of punk rockers giving it their all at the concert in the park is an eerie hooded figure all in white - like a version of Moon Knight has stepped into Doctor Who, or those headless monks from Matt Smith's tenure. It's very out of place and has to be deliberate. I'll keep a look out for other appearances of hooded guy in upcoming comics and hopefully it'll all mean something down the line.

All told, despite the artists best efforts it's a supremely disappointing end to this story. I had my fingers crossed last month that George Mann could pull things into interesting shapes, but sadly he didn't deliver. Next issue he is still around as writer but Rachael Stott is back on art. I'm looking forward to that if nothing else. 

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Still no Fourth Doctor issue 5 at the time of writing but I believe its due imminently, so I'll come back to that next time. Instead I thought I'd take a quick skim through the issues released so far in this years "event" series, 

Supremacy of the Cybermen # 1 - 3

 

Four Doctors, six companions, a bevy of guest star friends and foes and a silver implacable army. Sounds like a recipe for a lot of fun doesn't it?.

It's written by George Mann (yes it's him again which doesn’t fill me with confidence from the start, but we'll see). This time though he's joined by co-writer Cavan Scott. Art is from Allessandro Vitti with Ivan Rodriguez and Walter Geovanni - except for where its by Tazio Bettin on a few odd pages. The colourist is Nicola Righi.

Parts one to three are out so far, but I'm not going to do my usual blow-by-blow in depth analysis of each issue. Instead for now this will be a few random thoughts about what I've seen so far and how it's shaping up.

The first thing to mention is that although we have four Doctors featured in every issue - incarnations Nine to Twelve - none of them meet each other. I guess that may come later, but right now each Doctor is in their own timeline with their own problems to face caused by the Cybermen. Nine is on Earth in 2006 with Rose, Jack and Jackie Tyler, Ten is with new comics companions Gabby and Cindy in the 24th Century and Eleven is with regular pal Alice in the time of the dinosaurs.

Twelve meanwhile is on his own, after the end of "Hell Bent" - and in fact Mann & Scott are picking up on plot threads directly from the last two episodes of that season. They even deal with a little niggle than some fans had about the appearance of a certain Sisterhood...

It's a bold move, especially if Moffat is about to do his own spin on these outstanding points next year. Still if you are going to be writing an "event" series you have to think big - and that’s one thing you have to commend this storyline for - its certainly epic.

The Cybermen are more powerful than ever. Time is being rewritten. The Doctor(s) are fighting for survival on multiple fronts and an old foe is our for revenge. Remember my thing about wanting comics to be more than just normal stories with attractive drawings? (you're probably bored if hearing me bang on about it by now). THIS is the kind of thing I wanted. Okay it's not really innovative in the way that the story from a couple of months ago about living people trapped in comics was, but there is certainly no way that this tale could be told on our TV screens - even with a very generous television budget.

Both writers are obviously having fun here - cherry picking bits and pieces from the past six decades of the series and expanding things in new directions in some cases. We get a Sontaran leader with a grey beard, the return of a giant creature not seen since Christmas 2008 and a location from "The Five Doctors" even makes an appearance. Plus, you can tell from one especially nice page in issue three that this is truly a story that affects ALL of the Doctors throughout time and space.

In fact this has actually surprised me because I genuinely don’t know where the storyline is heading.
I'm a little dubious about turning one character into such an out-and-out bad guy and there seems to be a lot to deal with, being that there are only two issues remaining, but…..please….don't let me down George. Not again.

What about the art? Well Allessandro Vitti is not the greatest at likenesses of the actors - with Doctor Ten and Jackie Tyler coming off the worst, but you can tell who's who. He's far better at the big images like the Sontaran imperial flagship or dozens of Cyber vessels crowding the sky or a rampaging dinosaur. It's certainly full of life, backgrounds teeming with detail, almost frantic in places, as if his pen (pencil? tablet stylus?) was struggling to keep up with the action, The double page where we first meet the Ninth Doctor, with  its multiple vertical panels and quick cuts, is particularly worth of praise. Plus who doesn’t want to see a giant Cyberman head in space?

As for the work by Nicola Righi? Its certainly very colourful, even lurid at times. Dayglo pink and deep red backgrounds cast multi coloured shadows on characters faces. Prehistoric Earth is verdant green and a cyber conversion chamber glows with an eerie light. Somehow it feels like it harks back to the four colour world of early comics, but with a modern sensibility. This is not the real world. I really liked it a lot.

So three issues down, two to go. Maybe time for a little more direct menace from our silver big bads (who have not been front and centre quite yet) and hopefully a couple more twists and turns (and maybe some further incarnations of the Doctor), but so far Supremacy of the Cybermen is immensely enjoyable.

Right  that's me done for another month

As my favourite alien comics editor likes to say - Splundig vur Thrigg Earthlets !

View From The Fifth Row 9 - 9

Back with something new at last.

It's somewhat apt that the ninth post in this series of film reviews concerns a lesser known CGI animated science fiction / fantasy that was originally released on the 9th September 2009. It stars the voice talent of a veritable who's who of genre actors, including Elijah Wood, Crispin Glover, Martin Landau and Christopher Plummer. It's name could only be:

It's an alternate world. An unspecified time in the future, a strange rag-doll like creature with the number 9 on it's back wakes up in a laboratory. Clutching an artefact he finds in the lab, 9 ventures out into a landscape devastated by a planet-wide war. A world where creepy bio-mechanical machines stalk the surface - built and controlled by a self-aware computer brain.

Discovering others of his kind, 9 learns that he is one of a series of "Stichpunks"  - each imbued with a portion of the soul of the scientist that created them. 9 must rally his new friends into action and discover why the machines want to destroy them and why the Stitchpunks may just be mankind's last hope...

So far, so predictable you might think. But it's the depth of the themes behind the story, the quality of the animation and the vision of it's first-time director, Shane Acker, that allow this brief film (it's a mere 79 minutes long) to rise above many other bigger-budgeted CGI films.

Originally planning to become an architect, Shane Acker obtained degrees in that subject before realising that his true passion lay in film-making. Joining UCLA's animation workshop, he went on to produce two highly regarding animated shorts - "The Hangnail" and "The Astounding Talent of Mr Grenade", before spending four and a half years (on and off)  writing, directing and co-animating an 11-minute CGI dark fable - the first version of "9".

Released in 2005, it went on to be presented at a number of high-profile film festivals and was nominated for an Academy Award. It also caught the attention of Tim Burton, who was so impressed that together with Timur Bekmambetov (at the that point coming off the successes of "Night Watch" and " Wanted") he decided to produce a full length version with a modest $30 million budget.

So what makes this version of "9" so great? Well, first of all it's just stunningly beautiful to look at. This is not just 'good' CGI, this is some of the best I have ever seen. Seriously, if you want a film to show off your giant TV and Blu-ray player, this should be your first choice. Every single element has been painstakingly realised from the rubble-strewn cityscape to the terrifying bio-mechanical animals to the individual stitches on the bodies of the lead characters. These creatures are actually more expressive and well realised than the humans - they really look like they are made our of sackcloth and thread, not pixels. The film has a bleak, eerie visual style that looks like nothing else. It's breathtaking.

Secondly, although it's an animated film, there is far more going on that with some traditional CGI fare. Each of the nine Stichpunks are embodiments of different aspects of human personality. There are some interesting metaphysical and psychological thoughts running though the narrative about how as humans, interaction with others helps define ourselves. Divided up the other Stitchpunks are somewhat directionless and desire only to exist and not strive for greater understanding - slaves to the pure logical "brain" (the "Fabrication Machine" which is the primary evil of the film). If they are integrated and work together and have compassion for others, do they become a "whole" personality? Is that what their creator intended? Is that what is needed to save the world?

All the great "kids" releases work on multiple levels for multiple audiences and this is no different. If there is a problem, it's that the themes are perhaps buried deeper than usual, so that on first watch the film could come across as a confusing and even simplistic. It's one of those movies that bears out repeated viewings, but I can see how it could divide opinion.

It also sadly didn't set the box office alight on release back in 2009. That could partly be because it's not really suitable for very young children, as the monsters are unique and terrifying and some of the action sequences are pretty intense and scary. Also, maybe it was too difficult for some to see past the surface storyline to the allegories within. "Time Out" magazine described it as "an intriguing failure", but I think that's being extremely unkind.

"9" is not your average kids film. In fact, I'm loathe to call it a kids film at all, as I think it appeals to an older audience looking for something that requires one to stretch the brain cells that little bit more. On top of that, unlike some of the bloated blockbusters of recent years, this is a film that could actually have benefited from a longer running time. I wanted to know much, much more about this world. It's a film full of innovative cutting edge CGI but also mystery and a sense of wonder.

Dark, different  and original. An overlooked and underrated gem. I adore it.

The Doctor Who Show Reviews - Episode 8

I'm slowly edging towards having some other new stuff to post on the blog. No really I mean it this time. In the interim here's the text version of the comics review I recently recorded for episode 8 of the "Doctor Who Show" podcast.

As always a quick spoiler warning -  I will be talking about the story of the issue in question, but avoiding any major plot revelations where possible.

Twelfth Doctor  # 2.7

"The Twist" Part 2. Writer George Mann. Artist: Mariano Laclaustra

Sadly it's going to be a quick one this month as I've only got  one comic to look at. The final issue of the Fourth Doctor mini-series hasn’t been published yet, so the focus is solely on the latest in the Twelfth Doctor ongoing series.

If you recall, last month we had The Doctor indulging in his love for punk music by visiting the huge space station known as "The Twist". Here he met bass player Hattie and Jakob, a man on the run who had been framed for the murder of his best friend. Together the three had began to uncover some kind of government conspiracy, before being pursued by security forces into a park and suddenly confronted by a giant red furred beast...

We pick up immediately where we left off. The Doctor does his usual distracting technique of marvelling at the beauty of the creature and trying to calm the situation - all while Jakob pulls frantically at a metal panel hidden in the grass. As the creature moves in Hattie, desperately wacks it over the head with her beloved bass guitar and the three escape into some kind of service cave under the park.

Jakob has been in these under-tunnels before - this was where he previously encountered the fox creatures during his investigations.The Doctor is keen to find their "warren" and continues to explore, despite the protestations of the others. Following the strangely natural seeming tunnels, they eventually emerge into a gigantic cavern full of all kinds of wildlife. Jakob explains that this is one of two 'oxygen domes' from the original Earth colony ship, which was buried in the rock as the structure of The Twist was bio-mechanically grown around it.

Suddenly the trio are surrounded by more of the creatures, who identify themselves as "The Foxkin". The Doctor tries to reason with them but is quickly pulled away by Hattie before he can be attacked.To escape, he and his companions tumble through a large airlock type portal into the heart of the ship - the "stasis farm" - where the original colonists slept during their long journey through the vast interstellar distances of space.

The problem is, all the stasis pods are full of skeletons - none of the colonists survived the trip. The Doctor confirms this by managing to activate the dormant systems of the stasis farm and interrogate the ship's records. But if that's the case - if everyone is dead - where did the indigenous inhabitants of The Twist come from? 

Eager to find out more, the Doctor does the unexpected. He triggers an alarm, summoning the Foxkin to the stasis farm through other passageways and the humanoids are captured - much to Jakob's disgust. Taken to the second undiscovered oxygen dome - which contains a complete city - they are hauled in front of Canek, the leader of the Foxkin.

There is a much bigger secret here. Canek is apparently known as the "High Sequencer" which means that for the human inhabitants the Foxkin are really….

…and that's where I'm going to stop, as I don’t want to spoil the ending. However it's only a minor saving grace, because you will probably be able to figure it out for yourself before you turn that final page.You see, the real problem here is that this issue is all a bit predictable. The Foxkin are just what they sound like - giant talking foxes - another on the list of anthropomorphised animals as aliens which we have seen a hundred times in Doctor Who. Add the fact that we've seen lost colony ships before. We've seen hidden societies below ground before. I was just hoping for something a bit...cleverer. More surprising.

There are also parts which don’t make logical sense. Would a vast colony ship full of thousands of people really just be abandoned as lost? How has the Foxkin city remained hidden for thousands of years with all those technologically advanced humans up above? Especially as any Tom, Dick or Jakob seems to be able to open the secret doors at will? I'm all for suspension of belief in Doctor Who and science fiction in general but - I don't know, maybe I've just been exposed to too much genre fiction over the years and expect too much. It can't be easy coming up with wildly original ideas month after month. Goodness knows I couldn't do it. Am I being unfair? 

Art wise though the high standard of last issue is maintained, even if the design of the Foxkin is just 'giant foxes in tattered robes'. There is are a couple of particularly lovely images - one of the prehistoric-like bio dome, complete with curled tailed lizard on a stick - and the other the control centre of the stasis farm, which is somewhat reminiscent of the chamber from "Tomb of the Cybermen". The Foxkin city itself is obviously based on images of Roman architecture, with it's squares, amphitheatres and domed palaces.

Looking at the credits though, I do wonder if there were some deadline problems on the art front, because the exotically named Agus Calcagno and Fer Centurion are listed as "art assistants". I can't see any noticeable difference in Mariano's figure work, so maybe the assist was just on backgrounds. It's also worth mentioning the sterling work from the colourist, Carlos Cabrera, which really add to the mood of the strip, especially a superb page where the Doctor discovers the fate of the colonists.

So there we have it. A solid issue -  perhaps let down by an overly-familiar kind of alien threat and a predictable secret.  Looking forward, I hope that George Mann has a couple of tricks up his sleeve to take this in a less obvious direction, but based on this issue I'm not holding out much hope. I still think that there is more to Jakob though. He knows too much and that cybernetic eye still hasn't been explained. I guess it's fingers crossed for part 3 then.

Just time for a quick look at the variant covers and it's a pretty bland bunch to be honest. Alex Ronald usually does moody and evocative paintings, but his image this month is just a standard, if nicely coloured, pose of the Doctor. Nothing that leaps out at you.Will Brooks photo cover is eminently forgettable, so lets skip over that quickly. Simon Myers continues his album cover homages with Clara in place of the waitress on Supertramps's "Breakfast In America" - famous of course for "The Logical Song". I've seen him do much better though. There's also a "Doctor Who Comic Day" cover from Todd Nauck - who's definitely getting a lot of work from Titan at the moment - but it's marred because Mr. Capaldi seems to be thrusting his crotch at the reader. Is it just my bad eyesight?

Best of the bunch is the cartoon-esque cover from Zak Simmonds-Hurn - another artist who has done tons of work for "The Phoenix", plus his own self published series "Monstrosity" which is really most excellent and well worth checking out.

Okay. That's about it for this month. Don't forget about the audio version on the "Doctor Who Show" podcast which you can listen to it at www.dwshow.net or download it to your mobile device via the usual iOS or Android apps. Please subscribe, share and leave five star reviews and support all the effort from my fellow presenters. We really do appreciate all your comments.

You can follow the show on Twitter at @the DWshow or on Facebook at facebook.com/theDWshow. Finally the e-mail address is hello@the DWshow.net

If you have any specific comments about the blog, I'm always happy to chat on Twitter @livewire1221

The Doctor Who Show Reviews - Episode 7

Damn. Sadly there was no time at all for anything to be posted in the last month due to business trips, illness etc, but to start off August in a more positive mood, here's the text version of the Titan comics reviews I recorded for episode 7 of the "Doctor Who Show" podcast.

Just a quick spoiler warning -  I will be talking about the plots of the issues in question, although I won't reveal too much about the cliff-hangers if I can avoid it.

 Twelfth Doctor  # 2.6

"The Twist" Part 1. Writer George Mann. Artist: Mariano Laclaustra

It's worth mentioning that we are now in the post-series nine continuity, so Clara has gone  - at last -  and the Doctor is travelling on his own.

It's also all change on the creator front, as George Mann is back as writer and Rachael Stott is taking a well deserved breather. Instead we have Mariano Laclaustra on art duties. Mariano is no stranger to the 12th doctor comics - in fact he seems to be George Mann's go-to guy when George writes the series - however, it's the first time I've come across his work since I started doing these reviews, so lets see how he does…

The Doctor is visiting "The Twist", a gigantic inhabited Mobius strip in space. He seems to be there to indulge this incarnations fascination with Punk Rock, as that’s where we first encounter him - wearing his hoody and rocking out in the depths of the young crowd. After the gig he works his way backstage and meets Hattie, the bass player. Although he seems to be admiring her guitar, he's actually there to watch as a harassed man runs past, swiftly followed by a troop of armoured policemen in black. As the Doctor give chase, he's still got hold of Hattie's instrument, so she has no choice but to follow on behind.

 Using a different route to the cops, the Doctor gets to the man - known as Jakob -  first, and pulls him into hiding. It turns out that Jakob is being falsely accused of the murder of one of his friends - a local councillor called Idra Panatar. Taking the Doctor and Hattie to the scene of the crime, Jakob explains that he believes it to really be the work of vicious red-furred creatures that hide in the dark places of the colony - and that the authorities are trying to cover up their existence (hence why he is being framed).With the help of his new sonic screwdriver the Doctor uncovers a secret room in the apartment where Idra was collecting evidence about the monsters.There is definitely a conspiracy of some kind going on - and the Doctor is going to find out what it is.

Intending to track the creatures, the trio head for the "Power Park", where artificial trees provide electricity to The Twist. Suddenly those nasty cops reappear. Dodging through the trees the Doctor and his companions crouch done by some roots, only to be confronted by a huge beast with slavering teeth, sharp claws and a red bushy tail...

Okay, so far this seems to be a fairly traditional tale of monsters in the dark, government cover-ups and possible an oppressed second set of inhabitants of the Twist.What makes it stand out are the personalities of the two people the Doctor meets. Hattie is feisty, but a little bewildered as she is caught up in the wake of the Time Lord's investigations. Jakob meanwhile is clearly frightened, but not enough to give up on solving his dear friends murder. There's also something more to him. He seems to have one electronic eye. Whether than is just an artistic design choice to make him seem more alien or part of the plot only time will tell.

Art wise I have to say I'm pretty impressed with Mariano Laclaustra. There is a glowing, luminescent quality about his artwork that I really like - as if someone is shining a light through the back of the page. This may be down to the work of the colourist, Carlos Cabrera, of course but even so it's very striking. Laclaustra's character work is really varied and expressive and he has Peter Capaldi's distinct features down pat. I'll have to see what his creature designs are like when we see more of them in part two.

However in this issue it's in the double page spreads that Laclaustra's design sense really explodes off the page. There is a lovely image of the Twist colony itself at the start - a massive almost impossible structure floating serenely in space. But the real standout is where he uniquely illustrates a chase sequence, not by using multiple panels, but with corner illustrations, coloured arrows and a spectacular aerial view of the cityscape. It's very, very clever and gives a sense of scale, a sense of pace and keeps the plot moving in just one simple sequence.

All in all it’s a solid start for this storyline and hopefully its going to go in an interesting direction. We'll see next month. If there is one niggle, it's that yet again Titan have decided to spoil things by giving away the name of the new monsters in the next issue blurb at the back. That’s what the story is meant to be for! It's really starting to annoy me now.

Sorry. Pet hate.

It wouldn’t be one of my reviews without a quick walk through the variant covers. There are actually five this month. I'll skip past the fairly bland Will Brooks photo cover and the standard pose from "Young Justice" art Todd Nauck. On the third cover we get an absolutely lovely shot of the Doctor leaping in space as he plays an alien looking guitar. This is from artist Steve Pugh, probably most well known for Animal Man and more recently the DC Comics reinvention of The Flintstones. Is it a tribute to Prince? Possibly.

Simon Myers does another album cover homage. This time it’s the classic "Hot Rocks" by the Rolling Stones. Instead of Mick, Keith and the band we get The Doctor, Clara, Missy, a Cyberman and an Ood. I have to say, it's pretty darn good.

My top praise this month goes to anther image from Robert Hack, who I raved about in my review of the Fourth Doctor comic last time. Admittedly it's not moving very far from his wheelhouse - a spooky looking house on an alien moon with his usual orange based colour palette. No, top marks go to Robert for making the Doctor himself look absolutely bloody terrifying as he strides towards the viewer, with a furious look on his face. This is not a Time Lord I'd mess with !

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Fourth Doctor mini-series #4 (of 5):

 "Gaze of the Medusa" Part 4. Writers: Gordon Rennie & Emma Beeby. Artist: Brian Williamson

Last time, we left the Doctor and Athena using the Lamp of Chronos to get back to 500 BC. They're trying to rescue Sarah Jane -  who's now a petrified statue - and the Professor, who isn't but is about as useful as one. We get some lovely banter between the pair as the Doctor chatters on about the invention of ice cream and "hundreds of years to go before you've got anywhere to put a chocolate flake". Athena is interested in the battle of Marathon, but *I* want to hear more about the Great and Terrible Beast Emperor of the Third Crimson Collective. That one practically writes itself  !
 
The Doctor now knows that the caves they are in are a prison for a creature known as a "Medusa", an ancient alien parasite that leeches the life energy from its prey. Those are not statues scattered around - every victim is quantum locked, frozen in a single moment in time so that the Medusa can feast on them over centuries. It’s a hideous fate, accompanied by some stunning - if slightly too green - panels from Brian Williamson.

Of course no mention of quantum locking can go past without name checking the Weeping Angels, so we get a slightly clumsy aside from the Doctor before Athena discovers her father staggering through the rubble. He escaped the Medusa after its gaze transformed Sarah Jane, but slowly he found himself being turned to stone, the monsters taunts echoing after him as he wandered the never ending passageways.

Learning of Sarah Jane's fate - and that she saw herself in stone form in the halls of Lady Carstairs mansion - the Doctor vows to rescue her. Meanwhile back in Victorian London, the evil Lady herself discovers the Doctor and Athena gone and ventures into the TARDIS. She realises that the Doctor has far more power than she credited him with, so she and her Scryclops henchmen step into the Chronos portal after him.
 
Discovering Sarah Jane's transformed body the Doctor talks fondly to her, knowing that right now he can't do anything for her - she is a fixed point in time and has to stay a statue for two and a half thousand years until at least the 19th century. Confronting the Medusa, the Doctor reveals himself to be a Time Lord and that he knows the monster is trapped in 500 BC despite everyone else being able to get in or out. Elsewhere, Athena and her father are faced with Lady Carstairs and a rampaging Scryclops and the failing Professor ends up sacrificing himself to let Athena escape.

Catching up with the Doctor who is still evading the Medusa's gaze thanks to his trusty sonic, the pair flee through the caves, only to be surrounded by a green glow which the Doctor identifies as a transmat beam. They rematerialise in front of…

Oh come on - you didn't think I would give that away did you?

That big twist is the saving grace of the issue, which to be honest is a bit of a run-around to get all the players into their places for the final episode. It looks like Sarah Jane is going to be side-lined for most of this mini-series as an ornament, which is a real shame. Lady Carstairs also seems to be becoming redundant - more plot device than antagonist. It's a shame the Professor has gone, but I've made no secret of the fact that I never warmed to him as a character. He does get to go out on a high though by giving Athena his blessing on her relationship with her "young military man" and in the end being a hero to save his daughter.

On a positive note the Medusa is a lot nastier this issue, slithering around and tripping the Doctor up, with a nice menacing voice. The design hold up pretty well, although its tail does seem to get longer and longer from panel to panel. In fact Brian Williamson does a reasonably good job all round, although the obvious photo reference likenesses are creeping back in and the less said about that single page of the TARDIS console room the better. It’s a bit *too* familiar. I won't miss the interminable cave backgrounds. Hopefully Brian will get something more interesting to draw next issue when….

Ha! No you don't!

We've one more issue to go and I am really intrigued now where this is heading. Lets hope Gordon and Emma can pull off an satisfying conclusion.

So what else do we get with this comic?

Well there are no less than six covers. The usual photo montage from Will Brooks, one by Todd Nauck again which is miles better than his Twelfth Doctor cover earlier. There is a close up of the Medusa by Brian Williamson that’s really quite hypnotic and a Holmesian themed cover from Kelly Yates, who did work on the "Prisoners of Time" maxi-series from IDW a few years back. The fifth is a beautiful painted cover from veteran Mark Wheatley - one of my all time favourite artists.

Top of the pile though goes to the cover / ad for Doctor Who Comics Day 2016 which is a loving Jack Kirby pastiche by Andrew Pepoy. It's aping Fantastic Four #49 from 1966 which featured Galactus, but here we have the Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane and K-9 being menaced by a giant Cyberman. It's just wonderful; and I'd happily have a print of it hanging on my wall. Forget album covers - I want more 'King' Kirby inspired work!

The Doctor Who Comics Day theme doesn’t end there though, as at the end of the issue there are two one page  teasers to this years bi-weekly five issue event - "Supremacy of the Cybermen" - it being their 50th anniversary and all. The prologues features the Fourth and Eighth Doctors and don’t reveal much except that it looks like the series will be full of surprises. All five issues will be written by George Mann and Cavan Scott with art by Allesandro Vitti and Ivan Rodriguez. Issues 1 and 2 should be out now. Reviews may be forthcoming at a later date.

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That's the reviews for this month. Don't forget about the audio version on the "Doctor Who Show" podcast which you can listen to it at www.dwshow.net or download it to your mobile device via the usual iOS or Android apps. Please subscribe, share and leave five star reviews and support all the quality chat from my fellow presenters. We really do appreciate all your comments.

You can follow the show on Twitter at @the DWshow or on Facebook at facebook.com/theDWshow. Finally the e-mail address is hello@the DWshow.net

The Doctor Who Show Reviews - Episode 6

During the transmission of Doctor Who series nine in 2015, I managed to write a weekly review of each episode under the sub-title "Time Lord Thoughts". Some readers may also recall that there were a couple of occasions where I took part in the "Doctor Who Review Show" podcast, sharing my thoughts and theories on Peter Capaldi's second year as the Time Lord.

My involvement in that podcast led producer Rob Irwin (creator of the long running "Who Wars") to invite me to be part of the main "Doctor Who Show" when it commenced monthly transmission in January 2016. The difference here was that I would be part of an international team in a magazine style format podcast, covering not just fan opinion and reviews of the television show, but also current and historical merchandise, books, magazines audio releases and comics. When I mentioned to Rob that I have a long and varied history with comics, including buying that first ever issue of  "Doctor Who Weekly" back in 1979, he offered me a slot in the comics review section, which I gladly accepted.

It's a really diverse group of people that has been assembled -  Iain (Five Minute Fiction) has a humorous take on the A-Z of Doctor Who, Jim (Krynoid Podcast) and Bob (Progtor Who) transform into the Letter Lords and use the "Doctor Who Magazine" letters page as a springboard for their discussions,  and Rob himself conducts a regular hour long interview with fans and writers plus hosts the merchandise segment "Whotiques Roadshow".

In the 'TARDIS Library' section, Matt (Blue Box Podcast), Mark (Idiot's Array podcast) and Lex (Who Wars) perform duties on the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctor comics series, so it's down to me to read and review the Twelfth Doctor ongoing series published by Titan Comics - plus the Fourth and Eighth Doctor miniseries.

So that's what I have been doing for the past six months. Between ten and twenty minutes a month on the latest published issues - my thoughts on the covers, script, artwork, connections to the TV show, etc, etc. It's been a lot of fun and I've had some nice comments.

You can catch up with all six episodes released to date at thedwshow.net.

New episodes appear around the 25th of every month.

The thing is, I'm more naturally a "writer" than a "presenter", so I found myself writing a lot of bullet point notes as I read through the comics and using them as the basis for my recording. Over time that developed almost into a 'script' with a few ad-libs in between - and then a thought struck me -I could use these notes for a blog post! A quick e-mail exchange with Rob Irwin to check he was okay with it, and here we are.  Not only does it allow for more published content in what has admittedly been a very sparse 2016, it also gives some nice cross promotion opportunities.

But why start with Episode 6? Well, that's the most recently released podcast that came out only a few days ago, plus it's the one where the notes are freshest in my memory. In a typical Doctor Who-like way, I'm going to publish my reviews backwards over the next few weeks / months until they are all on the blog. Going forward I'll release my written version a few days after the audio on the podcast, so Episode 7 will be out around the end of July. Hopefully both mediums will be of interest to people.

One quick note - these reviews were developed for audio, so by their very nature they are quite descriptive, whereas in a normal blog post I could have just shown the image to illustrate my point. However, I do think that part of the joy of reading comics is experiencing the artwork for yourself so I have included just a couple of images here and there. Be warned though - I do talk about the plots quite a lot so if you want to come into the comic spoiler-free, you might want to skip those bits.

Having gotten all that out of the way, let's crack on...

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Fourth Doctor mini-series #3 (of 5):

"Gaze of the Medusa" Part 3. Writers: Gordon Rennie & Emma Beeby. Artist: Brian Williamson

Despite my personal dislike of them, it looks like variant covers are here to stay on these titles, so  l thought I'd take a slightly more detailed look at the four covers available for this issue. They really are quite different this month.

First up we have the regular cover from series artist Brian Williamson, which sees a petrified stone Sarah Jane in the grips of a green scaly clawed monster. In the background stands the Doctor, armed with a round shield. Now it doesn’t represent any scene that actually occurs in this book but it’s a nice moody shot which clearly pays tribute to the original, and best, "Clash of the Titans" movie from 1981 - the one with a Ray Harryhausen animated Medusa and Laurence Olivier as Zeus - not the 2010 remake with Ralph Feinnes in a dodgy beard.

Second up is the Photoshop cover from Will Brooks, with mad, google eyed Tom about to be grabbed from behind by a pair of three fingered claws. There is some nice use of colour and overlay effects, but it's spoiled slightly by the obvious cut out lines around the Doctor and the fact that he and the claws just don’t seem to be  in the same shot. I've seen Will do better.

Our third cover is from long time comics artist Warren Pleece, who has been around since the days of the UK's Harrier Comics in the late 1980s - and who I've come across more recently in the pages of 2000 AD and titles from Vertigo. We have the Doctor wandering along a dockside while a lamp bearing Sarah Jane looks apprehensively behind her at some dodgy looking workmen hiding in the shadows. I'm not a huge fan of Warren's art but it's nice enough - although it does look more like a panel lifted from a story than a cover image. Plus the Doctor looks like he is constipated, or about to cry - I'm not quite sure which.

Finally we come to perhaps the most interesting of the four covers which is from Robert Hack, who has done lots of Doctor Who variant cover work before for the IDW line - but whom I know primarily as the artist on the excellent "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina" from the Archie Comics horror line.
It's very much in a similar style to that comic with scratchy line work and a washed out brown-toned colour pallete as the Doctor is watched by a skeletal female figure. For me it's one of those pieces of art where you don’t like it at first and then, the more you look at it the more you see the skill and detail - the large confident brush strokes in the background, the wrinkles on the Doctor's jacket, etc.
I'm somewhat reminded of the work of Guy Davis from the wonderful "Sandman Mystery Theatre" series written by Matt Wagner (which funnily enough Warren Pleece worked on as well). I really wasn't keen on Davis's work initially but grew to love it. It does make me wonder what Robert Hack could do with a full horror themed issue of Doctor Who...

On to the meat behind the covers. Last time we ended with Sarah Jane and Professor Odysseus James, and a cyclops creature, transported to the ancient past by the strange 'Lamp of Chronos', leaving the Doctor and the plucky Athena in Victorian London to figure out a way to get them back.

Those two plot strands move along quite briskly. On one hand you have the Doctor tinkering around with bits of technology to get the Lamp of Chronos working again, all while fending off the evil Lady Carstairs as she makes a bid to recover the lamp, assisted by her time sensitive henchmen - who now have a nifty name - the Scryclops.

Meanwhile back in the fifth century BC, Sarah Jane and the Professor explore the underground cave system they have been dumped in, which is full of more petrified humans from the Victorian era and other time periods. They then find the poor Scrylops that was transported with them, also turned to stone. Something else is there, slithering about in the dark...

It's not really spoiler territory to say that the Doctor manages to open a gateway to the past using the lamp and that Sarah Jane meets a stony fate from the gaze of the monster in the depths.
The first had to happen in plot terms  - although why the Doctor didn’t just use the TARDIS I'm not sure  - maybe he had to find out *where* in time Sarah Jane went, and only the lamp could do that? The second was telegraphed way back in part one (and on one of the covers of this very issue), plus the storyline *is* called "Gaze of the Medusa".

No the real fun to be had is the dialogue and character interaction, which has built on the successes of the last two episodes. In ancient times Sarah Jane is shown to be the one in charge and displays all the feistiness and investigate skills that’s we've seen in the character on television. She certainly puts Professor James in his place on more than one occasion. Speaking of the Professor, am I the only one who is getting a little fed up with the constant tiresome literary quotes every time he makes a new discovery? It's my least favourite aspect of this storyline so far.

There are some lovely Tom Baker-ish moments when the Doctor tries (and initially fails) to get the Lamp of Chronos working again. He even considers Athena as potential companion material - and she gets a short hop in the TARDIS. Personally I find her a bit bland at the moment, but maybe that will improve.

On the art front, it's good news because there are far fewer of the jarring  and obvious photo references from Brian Williamson. One or two still creep in but its more subtle. There are also a couple of nice unusual panels - both of which involve  the Scryclops  - one where we see the Doctor and Athena through its eyes and another where its sort of targeting the fleeing pair as they prepare to enter the timestream. Elsewhere, Williamson is a bit limited with what he can do with the endless cave backgrounds, so the colourist is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in those scenes.

So then we come to the "Medusa" monster itself . It was probably the right decision to steer away somewhat from the classic snake-headed female design that everyone knows from movies and literature. We still have thick "tendrils" for hair, malevolent eyes and a long tongue, but we also get a snake-like body with a clawed hand at the tip, some mandibles that are a little reminiscent of an insect and… four arms - of which the lower set seem able to bend at rather unnatural angles. Maybe that’s just the drawing. It's not a particularly awe inspiring design, but it's still quite scary looking in the final full page cliffhanger.

With two issues still to go in this mini-series, there is a lot of ground left to cover and quite a few unanswered questions:
How will Sarah Jane be returned to her natural form?
What will the Doctor and Athena find when the step out of the chronostream?
Is the Medusa the same creature that Lady Carstairs made a deal with and if not, where does *it* fit into all of this?
Will the Professor do something useful?

There's plenty of scope for a few more twists in this story and its shaping up very nicely so far. One final niggle though, why put the title and credits page halfway through the book instead of at the start or the end (as usual)? It's very jarring and takes you right out of the story.Maybe it's just my digital copy…

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Twelfth Doctor #2.5

"The Fourth Wall" Writer: Robbie Morrison. Artist: Rachael Stott

I've less to say about the covers for this title, as two are simply - admittedly very nice - shots of the Doctor and Clara peering out over the sonic shades. Maybe like in previous months they are an album cover homage, but if so, it's not one I can easily recognise. There are a couple of nice touches with the pair reflected in each others glasses and the pattern on Clara's dress seemly made up of the cogs from the TV show title sequence. 

The third cover is the Photoshop one with Clara in various costumes and all the Doctors she has appeared with in Gallifreyan time screens behind her. The last by Rachael Stott is the most impressive, with its red background blending into the Doctor jacket as he reaches out a hand towards the reader, inviting them in. Its quite apt considering the subject of the story within.

In my review for issue #2.4, I complained that the Sea Devil story was a little dull and predictable  and didn’t take advantage of the comics medium. How Titan should be doing " stories too broad and too deep for the small screen", as the blurb on the back covers of the New Adventures novels used to go. Well it looks like I have to eat my own words because Robbie Morrison and Rachael Stott have done just that with this comic.

It starts with the Doctor directly addressing the reader, urging them not to read any further - "This comic could destroy the world" he says "Don’t turn the page". Breaking that invisible barrier between story and reader is a literary device that’s been tried several times before (Grant Morrison I'm looking at you) and there have been some novels have have used it as well - not forgetting the First Doctor wishing "A Merry Christmas to all of you at home" at the end of episode 7 of  "The Dalek Master Plan".

Of course we do turn the page, and are confronted by a a full page image of a twisted deformed face and some kind of protoplasmic hand reaching out to us. We then cut to the room of a teenage girl who experiences the same unnatural sight from one of her own comic books,  just before she vanishes. It turns out she is trapped in the pages, hands rattling the panel borders in desperation.

Meanwhile the Doctor and Clara land in central London - asked by UNIT to investigate a spate of strange disappearances and some unusual energy fluctuations. The readings lead them to Shaftsbury Avenue and the doorway of the "Forbidden Planet" store - except in the Doctor's universe its called "Prohibited Sphere". Is this it's first comic book appearance since the Denmark Street store cameoed in those classic Captain Britain stories?

It turns out that Clara is a bit of a comic book geek. There's some nice, if a little heavy handed, chat about diversity in comics and why the Doctor doesn't regenerate into a woman, before he discovers that he himself is the subject of one of the titles - the humorously named "Time Surgeon".

When the Doctor vanishes suddenly in the middle of a rant about the inaccuracies of his comics book portrayal, it's left to Clara to wheedle the truth out of the store employees - the comics have been "eating people". The two members of staff prove their claims by taking her to a store room and showing her the books they have kept where previous customers are now trapped inside. In a sudden moment of insight, Clara works out she has to open up her copy of "Time Surgeon" - and there is the Doctor, glaring up from the page and demanding that she "Buy this comic immediately, my life depends on it!".

Before she can take this all in, the male employee starts to get sucked in as well, and as a creature emerges from the pages, Clara sees who is responsible - it’s the Boneless, the two dimensional monsters from series eight's "Flatline".

What follows are the two parallel stories - one with  Clara and the female employee frantically trying to escape the clutches of the Boneless, and the other with the Doctor inside the comic book world. Here he meets Natalie - that girl from the start of the book - that’s who his opening warning was directed at.

We get some fantastically imaginative spreads as the Doctor shatters the confines of the page (a classic nine panel grid) and the pair escape into the realm between the panels - a realm where endless comics books exist - many containing other trapped humans. Panels from the Doctor's own past adventures swirl round him as they step through the multiverse. There's even time for a "Silver Silver" surfer joke.

The Boneless are invading the Earth, via our comic books, one reader at a time. It seems hopeless, as our trapped three dimensionals are dragged closer to the home of the 2D creatures - until the Doctor realises that the disparate panels are all connected in a kind of shared universe, via the power of the readers love for the medium - and that power can be harnessed.

Through a combination of the Doctor directing all that reader telephathic energy and  Clara using the TARDIS to break the" Fourth Wall" between realities (there is some technobable about a spacial flux) we get a classic Spider-Man "and with one bound they were free" moment as things return to normal and the Boneless are defeated.

So, this is a tale about the power of comics that could only be told through the medium of comics and it's brilliantly done. Rachael Stott's artwork is allowed to shine through her illustration of the gap between the worlds. There is some absolutely beautiful stuff here and her Twelfth Doctor has never looked better. I know she is not illustrating the next storyline, but I hope that she returns to the title very soon.You also can tell that Robbie Morrison belives in the endless possibilities of comics and how they bring joy to millions - the Doctor gets a great speech saying just that towards the end.

If things are let down at all its that there is a little too much time spent with Clara running away and destroying the comic shop in the process. Whereas the Sea Devil story was overlong at four parts, I was enjoying things so much that this feels too short and could have done being a two-parter with a nice cliffhanger in the middle. Our journey through the strange new dimension is over far too quickly. I wanted the Doctor to explore more of the realm of the Boneless and I reckon there were yet more interesting things that could have been done with the structure of comic books if there had been the room to let the creators - and the readers -  imagination really run with it.

Last thing to mention is the one page cartoon from Colin Bell and Neil Slorance. It also riffs on the nature of comic books and is a great creepy little read.

All in all it’s a very satisfying issue, and for me a big step up story-wise from the first four. Lets hope they maintain this quality. Highly recommended.

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That's the end of the reviews for this month, so it's just left for me to remind people about the audio version on the "Doctor Who Show" podcast. You can listen to it at www.dwshow.net or download it to your mobile device via the usual iOS or Android apps. Please subscribe and support all the excellent stuff coming from my fellow presenters around the world.

You can follow the show on Twitter at @the DWshow or on Facebook at facebook.com/theDWshow. Finally the e-mail address is hello@the DWshow.net.

The Idiot's Lantern 3 - Cosmic Zoom and the Powers of Ten

Wow is that the time?

Yes I'm back. It's still probably going to be sporadic blogging for a while but something from my childhood popped into my mind recently and I wanted to share it. Although that title at the top sounds like it's from some obscure 1960s superhero comic - all lurid colours, x-ray specs adverts and checkerboard mastheads - once again this section of the blog is actually going to be about an educational TV program - something small that had a huge impact on my early life.

I went to school in the UK in the 1970s and early 1980s. There were no PC's or tablets. No internet. No mobile phones. Just a succession of  "temporary" pre-fabricated classrooms that had been there for thirty years (the dreaded "demountables"), ramshackle outside toilets, desks like something out of "Just William", playground apparatus made out of cast concrete and teachers that were more frightening than any horror movie (Mrs Fairbrass I'm looking at you). When I moved to 'secondary' school I remember depressing grey buildings that would have been at home in any prison yard, a maze of corridors and wasted hours of sports lessons - all interspersed with a lot of bullying.

I'm being unfair. There were some good times during my school years and some excellent teachers. Mr McCarthy gave me my love of fantastical stories. Mr Keane gave me my interest in science. Mr Wheeler managed to instil a lifelong interest in World War II. Certain things that I learned have stayed with me ever since. More importantly, this was the peak period of ITV and BBC schools’ television programmes.

Most primary and secondary schools were using them in lessons at some point. It was the highlight of the week, in both my schools. My abiding memory is that there was a kind of ritual that had to be observed. The class would be escorted into the tiny "television room" (basically a dour windowless cubicle somewhere in the middle of the school building with the requisite number of grey plastic chairs) and told to sit down and behave. The teacher would then toddle off to the locked store cupboard next door to collect the television (it being a far too precious a commodity to be left out unguarded) - at which point of course the class would do anything except sit quietly and behave (unless it was the deputy head because even the most disruptive pupils were scared of *him*).

Before World War III broke out the teacher would return wheeling in the precious box, replete on its sturdy metal stand and enclosed in a wooden box (why?). With a practiced action they would slide back the folding doors of the cabinet to reveal the behemoth inside. The screen must have been all of twenty inches at its utmost, humming into life with a warm glow from the valves and the ever-present smell of burning dust.

The early days were before the advent of video recorders - although they did arrive eventually when I was around twelve, and you were privileged indeed if you were allowed to push the "play" button. Not yet for us the convenience of watching a program when it suited the school. We had to be there at the time of transmission or not at all. Like a producer at his mixing desk, someone in the mysterious locked room at the back of the library (they'd call it a 'media lab' or something equally grand I expect) would flick a switch to allow the signal through to the darkened room and the screen would sputter into life to show the familiar clock, counting down the sixty seconds til the programme began...

Like junior scientists at NASA Mission Control, we would sometimes be allowed to count down the last ten seconds together out loud. Silence was then meant to descend, but inevitably some jokester would shout out "Blast Off!  - to a groan from his classmates and a stern "Shush!" from Mr Wells. By the way, that's not a random image I've picked there to illustrate ITVs timekeeping - the programme named above is key to the memories I am recalling here.

"Picture Box" was the jewel in ITVs schools programming, running for an astonishing twenty-seven years. Beginning in 1966 it was created by Brian Cosgrove of "Danger Mouse" fame and initially presented by Dorothy Smith. It showed a huge variety of dramatic short films and documentaries in ten minutes slots, designed to stimulate the imagination of children and inspire creativity. This was the show where you learned how they painted the Forth Road Bridge, discovered the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, watched the French classic "The Red Balloon" or slipped into the bizarre world of Czech animation (there seemed to be a lot of that on TV in the 70s).

Of course the golden age of "Picture Box" - and the one that everyone remembers - is when it was presented by the affable Alan Rothwell (an actor who has popped up on both "Coronation Street" and the original Channel 4 soap opera "Brookside") - accompanied by that eerie theme music and an image of a rotating jewellery casket. As far as inducing childhood nightmares goes, that music is up there with white-faced clowns, the "Tales of The Unexpected" opening titles, Noseybonk and "King of the Castle" (well for me anyway). It also made the case of the television resonate for some reason...

For a long time as a youngster I kept getting Alan Rothwell and Doctor Who actor Bernard Holley (Tomb of the Cybermen & Claws of Axos) mixed up, even though they really don't look anything like each other. Similarly for "Mission: Impossible" star Peter Graves and Brit actor John Woodvine. I've also read that some children of my era felt than dear old Alan was "creepy", which I could never work out. It's strange how the mind works...

But I digress. "Picture Box" showed a number of these short films repeatedly throughout the school year (so that everyone could catch them). "Peter and the Wolf" and that damn "Red Balloon" kept cropping up. I have memories of tumbleweed rolling across a desert and a little boy launching a tiny hand-carved boat on a river, along with documentaries about windmills, the cuckoo, and shire horses on stamps (yes really!). However, the one film that I remember above all others is "Cosmic Zoom".

Made by the National Film Board of Canada in 1968 and drawn and directed by the brilliantly named Eva Szasz, it was based on a 1957 essay by renowned Dutch educator Kees Boeke. The original work attempted to illustrate the relative size of everything in the universe from the galactic to the microscopic, and the film does the same thing, through an eight minute long 'animated' sequence.

The film starts with a live-action shot of a boy rowing on a lake in front of some kind of industrial plant - his faithful dog beside him. The image then freezes and turns to animated form and the camera zooms out, revealing more and more of the landscape until we can see the whole lake, then towns and cities and continents and eventually the entire Earth. It then keeps zooming out past the Moon and the planets of the Solar System, past the vast black distances between stars and beyond our Milky Way and the myriad other galaxies - out into the farthest reaches of the universe. Eventually we slow down, stop and then a fast reversal begins, back through the inter-galactic vastness to Earth and to the boy on the boat.

The inwards movement doesn't stop there though. We keep zooming in closer and closer til we see a mosquito on the boys hand. The camera moves past the surface of the insect and under it's skin, through the blood vessels and into the microscopic world. Eventually we reach an atomic nucleus, and the process is reversed once again, so we zoom back to the boy in his boat, where he continues his interrupted rowing.

Look,  as much as I can describe it, there is no substitute for seeing it for yourself -

Admittedly the drawings and animation were crude by the standards of the 1970s. I'm fairly sure that I was aware of the concepts presented within the film at a young age (being the avid SF reader and Doctor Who fan that I was). My memory is a bit blurry, but by the time I first came across "Cosmic Zoom" I think I would have been around eight or nine, so I am sure I must have seen the 1966 movie "Fantastic Voyage" (I *know* I'd watched the wonderful Filmation cartoon series - a blog post about the 'Combined Miniature Defence Force' must be on the list at some point). The delights of Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, Blake's 7 (and Doctor Who's "The Invisible Enemy") were only just around the corner.

But none of that mattered. Something about this simple little film entranced me. Here was the vast scale of the micro and macro-scopic universes laid out in a way that everyone could understand. My imagination and interest was fired up even more than before and I began to scour the local village library for information. There wasn't a great deal to choose from in such a small resource and it was somewhat limited, but nonetheless I read everything, kept looking for more. I watched all the factual science show on the BBC - "Tomorrow's World" was already a staple in our house but I tuned into "Horizon" and "The Sky At Night" and of course "Connections". I must have driven my parents mad. It was a wonderful time in my childhood.

Then when I was ten I saw a second, almost as influential, film that covered very similar ground to "Cosmic Zoom", but perhaps from a more 'mathematical' slant. "Powers of Ten" began life as a black and white prototype short in 1968, from the minds of Charles Eames and his wife Bernice (known as Ray) - pioneers of modern architecture and furniture (many people will have heard of the Eames lounge chair). It depicted the scale of the universe according to an order of magnitude based on the factor of ten, using that same famous "Cosmic View" book by Kees Boeke as its inspiration. However it was the second revised colour film completed in 1977 that most people became aware of.

Titled "Powers of Ten: A Film Dealing with the Relative Size of Things in the Universe and the Effect of Adding Another Zero", the documentary begins much like "Cosmic Zoom", with a static one metre square view of a scene on Earth  - this time a man and woman picnicking in a Chicago park. Slowly our perspective pulls back to a view ten metres across (10¹ m) and then a hundred metres (10² m), where we see the whole park, and then one kilometre (10³ m) to reveal the whole city. Further and further we recede adding more zeroes to the distance until we reach 10²⁴ m - a hundred million light years from Earth - the size of the observable universe. The process then reserves, smaller and smaller to views at negative powers of ten (10^-1 m being 10 cm for example), into the sub-atomic world and finally the camera stops at 10^-16 m - 0.00001 angstroms - the home of quarks in a proton of a single carbon atom. Wow.

With narration from MIT physics professor Philip Morrison and music by Elmer Bernstein, this was a big advancement on "Cosmic Zoom". Not only were the graphics better but the addition of scientific notation and measurements gave an even greater sense of scale. Once again I was mesmerised. This exuberant fascination with the universe lasted well into my mid-teens, alongside my love of science fiction and - strangely - a growing interest in the paranormal. I sometimes wonder if I missed my calling in life. Perhaps I should have pursued my interest in science and followed my hero Carl Sagan (there will be *much* more on him another time) and become a cosmologist or astro or particle physicist.  Maybe I could have been the one to discover the "Theory of Everything"? Ah well, it was not meant to be...

The Eames film must also have had an impact on many others too, as over the years there have been several more updated and enhanced versions. In 1996, Morgan Freeman narrated "Cosmic Voyage" a loose remake presented in IMAX at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. In 35 minutes it managed to show forty-two orders of magnitude, plus some brief commentary on the Big Bang, black holes and particle acceleration. It was also nominated for an Academy Award. You can watch that one here as it's a bit too large to embed.

Then in 2012, astrophysicist Danail Obreschkow developed a complete remake of Charles and Ray's film using state of the art computer imaging, but this time as an Apple iOS application. "Cosmic Eye" uses real photographs wherever possible taken from telescopes and microscopes and its CGI is based on the latest scientific knowledge. In just a few decades the scale has now been expanded and defined outwards to ten billion light years and inwards to one "femtometre". It's well worth downloading, but if you want to watch a film generated from the App, you can see it here.

Finally I can't leave out the opening sequence of the Jodie Foster-starring "Contact" (that Carl Sagan gets everywhere) which is clearly inspired by "Powers of Ten".

What all these films have in common is a desire to show the scale and wonder of the universe we live in, from the largest supernova to the tiniest atom. The earliest ones inspired me and the latest ones  will hopefully do the same to a new generation.

Let's zoom...